Nancy Ilochi-Ikpeme

Help Make My Scholarship Dream Come True 🙏 I'm Adisa Blessing Oluwafikayo, a First-Class Mathematics graduate (CGPA: 4.76/5.0) from UNILORIN. I'm happy to have been awarded a fully funded Master's scholarship in Mathematics at the University of Calabria, Italy.

Yesterday, it was a privilege to participate in the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung's Global Strategic Advisory Group meeting at Villa La Collina, Lake Como, for a very important dialogue at a time when the global order is undergoing one of its most profound transformations since the end of the Cold War. The theme of the meeting — Global Partnerships Without U.S. Leadership — invited us to examine not merely the consequences of changing American foreign policy, but the deeper implications of a rapidly evolving international landscape. We met at a genuinely historic inflection point in international development — a structural rupture — one that compels governments, multilateral institutions, development practitioners, and policymakers around the world to confront a question that has been deferred for too long: what should international development cooperation look like in the twenty-first century, and who should lead it? The challenge is not simply how to fill the gap left by a retreating United States. The challenge is whether we can use this moment to build a development architecture that is more sustainable, more equitable, more strategic, and ultimately more effective than the one it replaces. History teaches us that every major geopolitical shift creates both disruption and opportunity. The real question before us is not whether the United States is stepping back. The real question is whether Africa, Europe, and other emerging partners are prepared to step forward. My central argument was simple: Africa must seize this moment not to replace one dependency with another, but to redefine development cooperation altogether. This requires three fundamental transitions: moving from aid to genuine partnership; using development cooperation to strengthen institutions, governance, and democratic accountability; and investing in the next generation of political, economic, and technological leaders who will shape Africa's future. And this moment — painful as it is — creates the political space to do something we should have done long ago: to build a genuinely different architecture. Africa today holds more strategic leverage than at any point since independence. The geopolitical competition for African partnership — between China, Europe, the Gulf states, India, Turkey, and others — means that African nations, for the first time in generations, have real partner choice. Genuine partnership must begin with ending raw material exports as our primary economic model. Africa must firmly say no to the automatic export of raw commodities without value addition. When we export raw materials, we forfeit jobs, technology, brand development, and the higher-margin profits that come from processing. Manufacturing and value chains create far more employment than raw commodity extraction. A genuine development partnership from Europe must support — not inhibit — Africa's industrialisation. Trade frameworks that open European markets to African raw materials while maintaining barriers to African manufactured goods are not partnership. The second imperative is strengthening domestic resource mobilisation as the foundation of sovereignty. Tax-to-GDP ratios across Sub-Saharan Africa average approximately 15.6 per cent, compared to an OECD average of 34 per cent. During my tenure as Senate President, we placed strong emphasis on fiscal oversight — introducing open budget hearings, confronting the issue of unremitted revenues held outside the treasury system, and working on petroleum sector governance reform. These were not easy fights. But they were necessary ones, because the alternative is permanent external dependency. The third imperative is investing in institutional quality as the foundation of everything else. When institutions are weak, vision is short-circuited and dependency becomes entrenched.

One of the first set of bills that I look forward to moving when we come back for the 11th senate is a bill that makes it possible for anyone who wants to be president or governor to spend only one term of 6 years. - Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, Leader of the 10th Senate.

What has EARS but does NOT listen ??

Omo-Agege was already a member of NDC before the APC Primaries. He played both teams to score.😃